By John Robinson, former Director, Missouri Division of Tourism

Almost broke my leg.

Well, not really. And the state herpitologist had nothing to do with it, directly. Regardless of the fact that he’d inspired almost all of us to put on a snorkel and dive the Meramec, he only wanted to find a Hellbender. No, not an Ozark Hellbender. An Eastern Hellbender. He didn’t find one. It wasn’t for lack of trying.

I didn’t find one either. But I found out something else.

I caught myself bitching that the Meramec’s current was slower than the rivers to which I was accustomed. Then I put on the mask.

State herpitologists don’t mince words. “You’ll eat more and sleep more than you ever have in your life, when you finish a day searching for hellbenders,” he warned.

He was passionate about finding even one of these primordial salamanders. They’re more than endangered, he said. “We can’t find small hellbenders. Maybe that means the big ones are not reproducing. Anybody that finds a young hellbender gets a free steak dinner.”

We were hooked. This gaggle of good swimmers and snorkelers, good conoeists, and genuine decent people waded into the water like we were at a revival. We didn’t want a steak dinner. We entered the river to find a Hellbender. We dived to the bottom of the river — no more than four feet — to overturn big rocks. Big rocks. That’s where the Hellbenders are.

So we hoped.

The current was swift. Just as the herpitologist said, you could overturn BIG rocks by using the current. In the middle of the stream, I tried to maintain my position, digging my feet into the rocky bottom, propping my skinny frame against a four foot wall of moving water. I dived, found a rock, overturned it. Before the muddy cloud dispersed, the river swept me a dozen yards downstream.

I dived for an hour. Maybe it was ten minutes. I’d swim ashore, walk upriver, and dive again, the current sending me downriver like bass food.

Every time I dived, I knew about the submerged tree. Downriver, about six body lengths. And it was big, sunk perpendicular to the stream.

The last time I dived to overturn a rock and find a hellbender, I missed grabbing the rock, my fingers slipping over its slick pate. The current swept me downstream, and I crashed into the butt end of the big submerged tree. My shin took took the shock. I rolled downriver, clutching my leg, until good sense and declining pain directed me to gather my fortitude and walk ashore.

The tree didn’t intend to hurt me. But that sunken sucker taught me a lesson:

The river is bigger and stronger and more important than all of us.

And I can only hope that a hellbender sits under that slippery rock.